


Take care of you

by wrothmothking



Category: You (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22168969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrothmothking/pseuds/wrothmothking
Summary: I know you've been hurtBy someone elseI can tell by the wayYou carry yourselfBut if you'll let meHere's what I'll doI'll take care of you
Relationships: Guinevere Beck/Peach Salinger
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	Take care of you

As a rule, Peach doesn't pay much attention to daemons. Her own is big, too big, well-muscled and chubby whereas she hasn't suffered either since she was a pre-teen. All of her friends have small, dainty daemons, able to fit into their purses so they're out of the way and no problem traveling the world with. That Ariel settled as a liger the day her parents announced their divorce, well. It made a minor disconnect feel like the ground had opened up between them.

But the first thing she noticed about Beck was the swan ruffling his feathers by her feet, so clearly agitated while his other half had a serene smile on her face, completely at peace waiting for her ride in the freezing autumn rain. A difference in state Peach never had with Ariel; she may find his growling and teeth-bearing subtle as a brick to the face and terribly unrefined, but it always matched when something happened to ignite her temper, protective or (self-)righteous or borne of pain. It's...interesting.

Then time passes, and Beck proves herself amazing. Witty, charming, kind, generous, creative, _beautiful_. Needful, yet proud. Olivier is perfect and perfectly distant, until something clicks.

Beck brings Joe--or 'Joseph' as Peach calls him, just to see that tick in his jaw--to her party. He's not Benji, but not a step above him either--more, to the side. The margay on his shoulder looks passed her, attention focused solely on Olivier in a way that should be reserved for prey. Peach doesn't want to find out how exactly she plans to devour him. There _is_ something sexual in that need to consume she sees in Pansy's gaze, the shallow mirror in Joe's dead fish eyes making her skin crawl, but it goes beyond that.

At some point Joe makes himself scarce, again. Beck's summoned a boy to her simply by existing, and Peach should be glad, should hope she takes him home and bangs the last of her ex out of her system with Joe here to watch them leave together, yet that age-old, familiar blossom of white-hot jealousy in her chest keeps her from feeling anything of the sort. She swallows it down as she always does, taps a reminder on Ariel's skull to coax in the snarl. Beck is demonstrably straight, and no matter how warm and friendly Peach tries to be, all it takes is one wrong word or one smirk with too much meaning, and Beck's in full retreat. Away from her, from what they could have, platonic or otherwise.

And then Beck runs from her catch. Her head swivels to the left, to the right, trying to pick one face out of a crowd, and though she smiles when her eyes lock onto Peach's, she knows she's not who the girl's looking for. She never is, for anyone.

So Peach trades wine for tequila, resolving to put it from her mind at least for one night, only to spill her glass on a million-dollar rug as static electricity assaults her front, leaving an odd, if pleasant, warmth. Something unnameable demands she look at Beck, a siren song anchored into her breast.

Like her, Beck stands frozen in the neutral zone between kitchen and living room. She's staring back.

Then she blushes, ducks down, and the spell's broken, so Peach diverts her attention to Beck's daemon.

Instead she finds her own, laying sprawled out in Beck's path, immovable. Nestled under his head, making a hammock of his paws, is a badger.

The instant she processes what she's seeing, she knows the badger is Olivier. It shouldn't be possible. Beck's a grown woman, how could her daemon be unsettled?

Struck dumb, she forgets to be mortified by Ariel's actions. Instead, she skips straight to the part where she takes Beck by the arm and drags her into one of many spare bedrooms, scaring the half-naked couple out with a sharp glower. Ariel herds Olivier in right after, their contact sending unwanted tingles through her body--unwanted, because there's an expiration date looming close in the rear view mirror, and she'll lose them. Most daemons are friendly with each other, these damned sensations dulled by familiarity as they and their people get closer, settled in their bonds, but not Ariel. Never Ariel, including before the divorce, including before her mother's stern lessons of _proper decorum._ And Beck knows that. All of it.

However, there was something yet more important.

Peach eases Beck down onto the bed, careful with her like she's a spooked horse, and settles in next to her, a respectable handful of inches separating them. Ariel hops up behind, his warmth easing into her back. Olivier, now a goose, close enough to his everyday disguise for her to blame the alcohol, take the easy way out, sits awkwardly on the floor halfway to the door.

She's never been one for the easy thing; usually, she doesn't have a choice.

"Are you alright?"

Beck relaxes, a tension Peach didn't realize was there dissolving into the atmosphere. "Yes, Peach, I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"I _promise._ I'm not your responsibility, okay?"

"No, not okay," Peach snaps. "You're my friend, and I care about you. Taking care of you, as much as you'll let me, _that_ is what makes all the bullshit about being a Salinger worth it."

"Peach-"

"If you don't want to tell me, that's fine," she lies. "But you should be telling someone."

As Beck quiets, attention diverted inward, a stone drops into her stomach. Peach can see her trusting herself with one person, and it's not her. It's Joe, the most boring psychopath in New York Beck's been fooled into thinking is her better half. They're not even together yet, and Peach is so sick of him. Jealousy overtakes her, burning like the ember of a dying star in her heart.

Then Beck looks back at her, tears in her eyes.

"I hate being out partying all the time; I have fun with you guys, I always have fun with you guys, but it never gives me time for myself, for, for _writing_. And I hate writing! I've never wanted to be anything but a writer, but everything I write is _so_ fucking emo and overdone-

"Hey, hey-"

"And it makes me feel like such a fraud I can never read it without wanting to set my notebook on fire or throw my laptop out the window and I feel like such a fool for even trying! And I love writing.

And my dad's still alive, I just wish he wasn't."

"For real?"

Beck giggles, wiping tears from her cheeks. "Yeah, unfortunately."

"I can have that fixed by morning."

It's not a joke, not really, but Peach supposes Beck's watery smile is where it should end for now.

So, she holds Beck's hands in hers, waits for eye contact, and says with as much dripping sincerity as she can pull together, "You are an amazing writer." Beck pulls away, or tries to, but Peach isn't letting go, not now. Not until she's said her piece. "You _are_. You just need time to refine your craft and figure out who it is you really are, and who you _want to be._ " (With.) "You have been living under a mountain of stress your whole damn life, Guinevere Beck, and you need a break."

"I don't have time-"

"Yes, you do, and with it, all of the considerable fortunes and connections my family has. Don't deny the world your gift because of pride." She looks to Olivier, now a coyote, and continues, "Don't deny Olivier what he needs to make you whole."

"Okay, okay, I cave. You're right," Beck confesses, deflating.

"Well, thank you for finally saying so."

Trying to decide whether Beck's laugh is more like a bell or a bird, she almost misses her next words: "There's so much more I have to tell you. Most of it...it's so weird that I'd keep it secret, I don't why I did that. The instinct would just, pop up, and it got so hard to ignore."

"Well, there's time for that, too. Whenever you're ready, and however much you want to tell me."

The way Beck's looking at her, it's like she finally _sees_ her. Or like she's finally allowing herself to.

"There's one thing, though, that involves you. I never should've buried it."

And for perhaps the first time in her life, Peach is truly shocked. They're kissing, a kiss Beck initiated, and she can't say what her lips feel like, or anything of the sort, because by the time she's processed it's happening it's over, and in that moment Beck's so fearful and vulnerable her heart breaks at the sight.

"Yeah, no, that you never should've buried."

In their second kiss, she finds out.

**Author's Note:**

> eventually, i headcanon olivier settling as a stag. other ideas?


End file.
